I Am Number Four

Four’s hands are thankfully back to normal when he wakes up the next morning. At school, however, he confronts Mark about his missing phone, which causes his right hand to glow. He is forced to put Henri’s gardening gloves back on. Everyone stares at him when he enters the classroom wearing the gloves, and he feels like a fool. The gangly boy with the NASA shirt sits next to him. During class, Four notices that he is drawing what looks like stereotypes of Martians in his notebook. He has written his name, Sam Goode, at the bottom of all of his drawings.

Four starts to think about Lorien, one of the 18 life-sustaining planets in the universe along with Earth and Mogadore. Lorien is one hundred times older than Earth, and its inhabitants figured out how to deal with all of the problems that Earth has, like pollution, global warming, and food shortage, 25,000 years ago. The planet was starting to die and so the Lorien people changed their way of life, getting rid of everything harmful, like bombs and pollutants, until over time it started to get better. Over thousands of years, the Garde started to develop powers and use them to protect the planet.

Sam sits with Four during lunch, where someone throws a meatball at the back of Four’s head, then his cheek. Four is furious and walks straight to Mark’s table. One of Mark’s friends, Kevin, tells Four that he has to fight him first if he wants to get through to Mark, so Four knees him in the crotch so hard that he doubles over. Both Four and Sam are immediately forced to go to Mr. Harris’s office.

At the end of the day, Sarah gives Four his phone back on the condition he promises not to fight. She doesn’t say, but Four knows that she clearly stole it back from Mark. As Four leaves, he runs into Mark and his friends and shows him that he’s got his phone back. Mark is shocked, and Four walks out.  

In the car, Henri and Four talk about Sarah. When the Loric people fall in love, it’s for life. Henri was married for 20 years before he left for Earth with Four.

When they get home, Henri tells Four that inside the Loric Chest is what is given to each Garde member at birth and used by their keeper when the Garde member is coming into their Legacy. The lock only opens when they are together and after the first Legacy appears, though Four would be able to open it alone in the event that Henri died. Together, Four and Henri open the chest.

Four takes out a rock called a Loric crystal, which automatically activates his Legacy. Henri has Four lay on top of the coffee table with his hands dangling over the sides, where he has built a fire under the table. He presses the crystal all over Four’s body as Four’s mind begins to wander. Four drifts away, and he imagines himself on Lorien. In the vision, the planet is in its prime, flourishing. Four hears a voice that says the Mogadorians know where “she” is, but they can’t kill her until they kill Four. Four watches the forest burn as bombs fall, and the Mogadorians enter carrying guns and grenades more powerful than those on Earth.

The voice, which Four now recognizes as Henri’s, says that the Loric were defeated so easily because they grew careless. Four watches the Loric fall, outnumbered, even with their Legacies. Some can fly, while others can run faster than the speed of light or shoot lasers from their hands. Henri says that the Mogadorians chose to attack when they were most vulnerable, when the Elders were gone. Pittacus Lore, “the greatest of them, their leader” (84), assembled them before the attack, but no one knows what happened to them or if they are still alive.

While Four watches in horror as the defenseless people of Lorien die horrible deaths, he hears a scratching noise, distant from the scene in front of him. Henri puts his hands on his shoulders and pulls him back to the present, where he is now above two cauldrons of fire, his hands and wrists submerged in flames he doesn’t feel at all. Henri tells Four to get down as he cautiously approaches the door.

At the door is the beagle Four saw at school. The dog trots in makes himself at home. His tag says his name is Bernie Kosar. Four can’t stop thinking about the horrors he has just seen. He tells Henri that there was too much hatred for the Mogadorians to only be interested in their resources, so they had to attack for other reasons they don’t know yet.

Henri says the Mogadorians are secretive, manipulative, and untrusting. They have powers, but not like the Garde. They started to die about a hundred years ago, but unlike Lorien 25,000 years earlier, they ignored the problems on their planet and destroyed their world. Lorien was the closest life-sustaining planet to Mogadore; Earth is the second. Earth is five times the size of Mogadore, while Mogadore is double the size of Lorien. The Mogadorians are brilliant war strategists, but since Earth is bigger and more equipped for attacks, the Mogadorians can’t successfully take over the planet in the way they took over Lorien. They don’t have an understanding of the planet and the people the way they did Lorien. 

Henri says finally that he doesn’t think the Mogadorians are interested in taking Earth’s resources. He thinks they are planning on killing humans and taking over Earth as their new home.

On the way to school the next day, Bernie Kosar jumps in the truck with them. After Henri drops him off, Four thinks about what he saw last night as he makes his way to his locker. Death wasn’t what he sees in the movies. It all looks different, the sights, the smells.

When Four opens up his locker, it is full of manure. Sam appears behind him and says he also got manure in his locker. They head to Mr. Harris’s office together, but Mr. Harris shows little interest.

In astronomy, Sam reads an article titled “Entire Montana Town Abducted by Aliens” in a magazine called They Walk Among Us. Four wonders if maybe there is any truth to it after his talk with Henri last night about the Mogadorians taking over Earth. He thinks about how the Loric helped Earth to grow and develop. They helped the humans by giving them tools to make fire and develop language, which is why their language is so similar to those on Earth.

In gym class later that day, Four and Sam do the mile run while Bernie Kosar dashes out of the bushes and jogs with them. Four has no idea how Bernie knew to find him. As Four and Sam jog together, Four asks him about the article he was reading in class and how Sam became interested in alien conspiracy theories. Sam says it’s just a hobby, but Four gets the sense that he is keeping something from him.

In home economics, Four and Sarah are partners. Sarah tells Four about her history with Mark. They dated for two years, but she became more like him as they dated. She started to become mean and judgmental, she drank too much, and she started distancing herself from her family and friends. She then went to live with her aunt in Colorado last summer and started taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. She realized that there is more to life than dating and cheerleading and took up photography, broke up with Mark, quit cheerleading, and vowed to become nicer to people.